Yet throughout the history of Indian slavery certain expressions of opposition to the system, usually mild in nature, occurred from time to time. In the English colonies there was never any such earnest opponent to Indian slavery as the Spaniard, Las Casas, who argued directly against the enslavement of Indians from the standpoint of the injustice of reducing the natives to such a condition. Most of the opposition expressed in the English colonies was aimed at some specific instance of harsh treatment or cruel punishment of which enslavement was an incident; or it arose during the later colonial period as a part of the antagonism to slavery in general; or, as was the case in South Carolina, it revealed the attitude of one faction of the government toward the actions of another faction, and was not at all concerned in abolishing the practice of enslaving Indians as such. The system adopted by Rhode Island at the time of King Philip’s War of using the captive Indians as involuntary indentured servants for short periods of years, was anticipated by the query expressed by Roger Williams in his letter to Governor Winthrop, September 18, 1637, as to whether the captive Indians whose lives were spared should not be retained in involuntary servitude for short periods of time and then be released.[1227] This spirit of opposition to the enslavement of Indian captives for life, shown by Rhode Island during both the Pequot and King Philip wars, was somewhat out of harmony with the spirit of the times. But it should be noted that this opposition was not the expression of the entire colony. During the Pequot War it represented the feeling of the “Liberal Party” against the enslavement of the captive Indians, and during King Philip’s War it resulted from the dominating influence of the Quaker element in the government.